Mr Pope stars in a new documentary called Aliens at the Pentagon, director by Michael Long, which lifts the lid on the Pentagon secret programme.

And Mr Pope claims it is not long before a full disclosure could reveal everything the US government knows about UFOs.

He said: “I identify what I think can best be described as a 'believer faction' within the US government, a maverick group of scientists and defence officials who genuinely think UFOs might be alien, and who are interested in a wide range of other paranormal phenomena.

“These real-life Fox Mulders were thrilled when the Pentagon got money to look at all this, but the government needed to distance itself from these topics, so a lot of the work was contracted out to Robert Bigelow's company, Bigelow Aerospace.

“One reason the government wanted to distance itself from this was because interest in UFOs and the paranormal went against the religious beliefs of some senior Pentagon officials, who regarded such things as demonic.

“Aliens at the Pentagon is aimed at reigniting interest in the story of the Pentagon's UFO project at a critical moment in history.

“The US Congress is demanding to know how the millions of dollars pumped into UFO research were spent and what taxpayers got for their money.

“Washington is abuzz with rumours that formal Congressional hearings are imminent, and we may be closer than ever to getting an answer to the question of what the US government knows about UFOs.”